Neb. hot dog slinger explains his exit from game

(CBS News) Back in 1986, CBS News correspondent Charles Kuralt introduced America to one of the greatest arms in football. P. Stephen Potter completed virtually every pass he threw.

But, now, CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman says that he's had a change in fortune.

P. Stephen Potter in his prime hot dog throwing days.

/ CBS

Our story tonight begins right where it began 25 years ago. "We stopped by Gothenberg, Neb. to meet P. Stephen Potter, attorney-at-law, and interview him on his specialty. Not law, his other specialty," Kuralt said in the original report.

"You take the hotdog and you have to put your finger so that when you throw it, it will spin end over end," Potter told Kuralt.

"On football Saturdays, P. Stephen Potter has closed his law office and traveled across the state to the University of Nebraska stadium to throw sizzling hot dog passes into the hungry stands," Kuralt explained. He was paid by airmail too.

This went on for exactly 36 years. Hartman explained that one year Potter was selling hotdogs, and the next year he was gone. Nobody knew where he went.

"That's basically what happened," Potter said.

Potter said in 2000 the university refused to issue him a vendor's permit. The official line was that they hadn't received his application, but Potter doesn't believe that.

Here's what Potter thinks happened: The year before, he wanted to bring his 3-year-old daughter into the game on his back. However, the athletic department said she needed a ticket.

"It kind of upset me," he admitted.

Not just kind of: He started really pressuring the university on this relatively silly issue. The next year, his application was lost. It's also important to note that about this same time, Potter got some competition in the stands.

"They had just developed the hot dog gun," he said.

The "viener schlinger" could throw futher than Potter with even better accuracy, and it didn't talk back to the administration. It was the final air-compressed blow to his career.

For a while, he threw at some private parties and did some nursing home gigs, but he never made it back again to college-level dog. He says there's a lesson in there for anyone who starts believing their own hype.

"It is so important that you don't start taking yourself too seriously. I actually expected this big backlash of 'Where's the hotdog man?'"

Before Hartman left, he played a little catch with Potter on main street, Gothenberg. Even after all these years you can still see traces of the all-American in Potter.

And Potter is all American. I mean, really -- football, hotdogs, automation taking jobs -- how much more American can you get?

[cbsnews_viewer]

I figure he had an extra 14 year run for a total of 36 years. Show me a professional football player who lasts 36 years. It ended in year 2000. The story is about many things. I like to think its about how the man was decent man and still a lawyer. It can sometimes work that way in small cities like Gothenburg, Nebraska population 3574.



He was a side attraction with a skill. The ticket people wanted to maximize money. It could of been the decision of just one ticket taker, and coworkers who backed him up and an administraiton more concerned with other things.
He was a decent man besides all the things we hear about many lawyers like John Edwards, the flim-flam VP candidate.
Entertaining as it was. I am sure almost nobody remembers the man's name. I mean really, its a 3 minute plus segment on CBS.

He was getting older so who knows how good his skill level still was. People like new things like novelty and invention (the airgun).

[hongryhawg]

It's dog eat dog out there. Ask the pretend president.

[NWAHusker]

It saddens me to see how commercialized the game of football has become at the University. I used to go to the spring scrimmage when there were just a few dozen of us shivering in the cold rain. Now you can't get a decent seat, because the university sells blocks of tickets to commercial interests before you can even call in to reserve one. Tom Osborn laments the loss of $400,000 in revenue because this last one is cancelled by the weather. This article, at least to me, was about the university shunning this man because he didn't want to pony up the money for a ticket for a three year old he was carrying on his back--- not even taking up room from another paying customer. Saturdays in Memorial Stadium are less because of his absence. Go Big Red.

[musicollector]

It was touching to see Steve revisit this fun-loving lawyer after so many years. I was delighted to see Potter doing well and taking it in stride despite being snubbed by the University.

I love your idea of having Steve revisit those whose lives were touched by the great Charles Kuralt. It is even more gratifying to see the subjects of these stories being alive and well, despite time may or may not having changed them. Keep it up, Steve.

[Roger1322]

Does the author not know the difference between further and farther? Evidently not.

[tmonta67]

Are we reading for content, or grading grammar, Teach?

[Wingsfan1983]

This was in an arena of academia

[cbsnews_viewer]

Its an arena of entertainment with academia as the excuse.

[ToolMangler1]

Anytime you can replace a man with a machine, do it. Humans commit crimes and mess up the Earth...
(Sarcasm)

[tbird4real]

Remember ' The Hot Dog Guy ' in my days @ UNL - What is now Osborne Field, when he wore his signature gray flannel suit w/ matching candy-striped hat and scarf. Caught alot of dogs from him sitting in the student section next to the band, but, he made me "stretch" to catch one, landing in the lap of a Mizzou fan - LOL !!

[Mrdoberman]

Home Depot, Walmart, and the rest of those corrupt big box stores all claim to be HUGE employers when they first move in to the communities. But once they get up and running and once they have put all the small mom & pop shops out of business they fire all the cashiers and open automated tellers. The only people they employ is shelf stockers. Corrupt corporations have ruined North America's work force. They exported most of the jobs and import all the foreign made garbage. The people that used to work in manufacturing are now just sales people for foreign garbage that used to be quality merchandize made in North America. Why can't people realize this and boycott the big box garbage depots???

[Wingsfan1983]

Welcome to the machine.